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First POST: Trump

Donald Trump announced his endorsement of Mitt Romney yesterday, and the Democratic Party put out a video saying that partnership made sense since they "both like firing people." At first there was some confusion as to whether Trump would be endorsing Newt Gingrich or Romney, evident in the fact that Fox News didn't remove "Gingrich" from the URL of its story on the Romney endorsement.

A federal appeals court refused yesterday to unseal recordings from California's trial over the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

The Library of Congress's THOMAS interface now provides links to committee hearing videos.

Even though President Barack Obama has preferred interviews to impromptu question-and-answer sessions while also interacting with voters online, the White House said he is not ignoring the traditional press corps, as the New York Times reported:

Daniel Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, responded in an e-mail, "The idea that interacting with the public through social media is somehow going around the White House press corps is a prehistoric notion." "The media has become so diffuse that communicating ones' message requires a lot more work than it used to," he wrote. "You have to be willing to go where the viewers are, because they now have so much choice in where they get their information."

The White House says it can't respond to the We The People petition asking the White House to investigate the Motion Picture Association of America's Chris Dodd — after he was quoted as saying of lawmakers who did not support the Stop Online Piracy Act, "Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk" — because it "requests a specific law enforcement action."

Creative America, the MPAA-backed group which has supported SOPA and PIPA, is looking to pay people to collect sign-ups for its list, Techdirt reports.

According to FEC filing reports, Google spent roughly $390,000 on SOPA lobbying. Techcrunch reports that it's unclear from the documents whether Google was lobbying for or against the bill.

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One pro-Ron Paul Super PAC blamed a credit card company for missing a recent deadline for filing disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission.

A federal advisory board says the release of data about a new bird flu strain is too dangerous.

In a larger seizure of sites illegally operating websites ahead of the Super Bowl, Immigration and Customs Enforcement shuttered 16 domains accused of illegally streaming copyrighted sports broadcasts live, or linking to sites that did the same.

A New York City Council member is proposing a bill that would allow residents to make campaign contributions via text message in citywide races.

Many Syrians who are in opposition to President Bashar Assad are using the web to express their protests, as the AP reports:

The Internet provides a layer of anonymity, which is vital when retribution is a real danger, but the creativity has also spilled into the streets in the banners, signs and songs of the protesters. "Top Goon: Diaries of a Little Dictator" is one of several new online shows. It was created by 10 young professional artists inside Syria. It uses finger puppets that impersonate Bashar Assad -- nicknamed Beeshu in the series -- and his inner circle.